


Grip Strength

by cRain



Category: Total Drama (Cartoon)
Genre: College AU, Drinking, Experimentation, F/M, First Kiss, High School AU, M/M, Multi, Multishipping, One-Shots, stories about kissing everyone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-01 04:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21386914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cRain/pseuds/cRain
Summary: I love Tyler as a character and back on FF.net I had some one-shots about him hooking up in the most random possible pairings. So I thought I'd bring that over here.
Relationships: Tyler/Cody, Tyler/Courtney, Tyler/Ezekiel
Kudos: 12





	1. Tyler Goes to the Office

Offering to run errands for Mrs. Penney is an excellent way to escape the horrors of math class, at least for a while. Some brilliant part of Tyler's 16-year-old mind decided that taking Foundations Math instead of standard-level Math 11 would be a good decision – that it would require a lot less effort, and sneaking a nap or two or droning out to doodle would have less of an impact on his overall ability to not fail.

However Tyler was on a certain borderline of stupidity that put him far above hopeless, and he began to realize about two classes in that Foundations Math was actually too dumbed down for his tastes. He already knew how fractions worked, at least, to the best of his knowledge, and if Lindsay Page raised her hand one more time to ask a wide-eyed, droning question that could be sufficiently answered by a sixth grader, he'd probably cry.

But at least the testing would be easy, and he'd get a seventy-something or more instead of the squeaky lower sixties he's survived with since seventh grade. Provided, of course, that he didn't come dangerously close to falling asleep during the quizzes, too.

One such instance of getting drowsy is what prompted Tyler to raise his hand when Mrs. Penney asked for a runner to retrieve the newly-issued computer logins from the office. The math room was sort of at the centre of the top floor, so he'd figured he could take the long way around and complete an entire cycle of the school hallways before returning. Sometimes, when the going gets tough in class, it's fun to find ways to waste as much time as possible, like when he and Zeke decided to run a business of rubbing everyone's erasers on the rough edges of chairs until they were pearly and white as if they were fresh from Staples. But getting a chance to actually _leave _the class? That was golden.

He thought, just maybe, he'd run into a random friend in the hallway and be able to waste an additional minute or two shooting the breeze. Or at the very least, he could toss a grimace into a classroom in hopes it mustered a laugh.

The first room he passed contained both Gwen Blasczyk and Alejandro Buerromuerto, and they aren't really ones for humour.

Or maybe he'd run into Noah Khosla once he got into the office. Noah was supremely gay, but he was right on, and since he had a role on student council, he was in the office literally once a day at least. Noah confided in him once that he always made sure to plan his office meetings to land during Chemistry, because Mr. Dentzel was a 'balding loser'.

But when Tyler set foot in the glass-paneled office, there was Noah, no student council members, and no Tyler-wannabes simply wasting time. There was nobody beyond the plump, curly-haired secretary, pounding her long-nailed fingers into the keys of her computer.

"Hey." He says, approaching her desk.

"What can I help you with?" the secretary replies. Her voice doesn't lose its warm, friendly tone despite being forced to answer a zillion phone calls a day.

"Um, yeah. I'm here to get my logins?"

"Which homeroom, hon?"

"Kelley Penney, 217…?"

The secretary motions for a stack of paper. She shoves a few stick-pens out of the way and browses the multitude of sheets cluttering her desk. "Oh shoot. I let Harry take them. He just went up to the computer lab. He'll be back, and then you can take your logins. Just go to the waiting area."

Part of Tyler is displeased that he needed to sit on his butt and wait, but on the other hand, the longer he sits in the waiting room, the less time he'd need to spend listening to math class, so his waiting surely has an upside.

He sits on a sparsely-padded metal chair with his legs splayed in all directions. He feels like he's at the dentist, except at the dentist's, there are usually sports magazines and good housekeeping, so he could learn about Lance Armstrong's testicles or how to make killer olive tapenade. In here, there's only pamphlets for activities he doesn't want to do.

He can spy the trophy case from here, knowing full well that any trophies featuring his name are back at the junior high school, possibly for mini handball. Things just got a lot more competitive once the kids' bodies were fully pumped with their sexual hormones.

In the glass of the trophy case, he notices the curving silhouette of a girl entering the office.

There's no reason to wear dress slacks and a button-up top to school, not on just a regular Tuesday in September. She enters with the clack-clack of three-inch heels, and by her gait, you can tell she means business.

"Hello, Courtney…" the secretary begins, usually tender voice worn a bit more thin. Clearly she's dealt with Courtney Vega before. "What can I help you with?"

But hasn't everyone had to deal with Courtney before? She tried to usurp Noah's position on student council, when everyone, even the freshmen, hell, even the grade nines who don't even go here yet, know that he's been set on president since he knew the definition of the word. She makes motions to build memorials to people who haven't even died yet.

"Yes," The freckled girl begins "Apparently there has been a mix-up, I have an unexcused absence on my record. There's no way that's right. It's only September 27th, and I have not missed a class."

"Hold on, let me look at your records." Some tapping. "It says you missed third period on the 16th."

"Well, that's incorrect. If I remember correctly, I had a doctor's appointment on the sixteenth."

"Did your parents call it in?" the secretary says, pained. "It can't be excused unless your Mom or Dad excuses it for you."

"I should suppose they did!"

"Well by the looks of things, they didn't."

"Those…" a sudden flash of darkness crosses her tanned face, breaking through her sugary diction. "I mean, well, would I be able to get them to call?"

"There's a five-day grace period for that. You had until last Thursday, so unfortunately, yes it's too late."

"This is ridiculous. I don't see why _I _should be punished for having a doctor's appointment! I want that unexcused absence _gone!_"

"There's nothing we can do about that, Courtney, if we let things get called in retroactively, people could just lie about where they were last month once they get close to the absence limit."

"Ugh." Courtney makes a small grunt. "I want to talk to the principal."

"She's busy, hon. Just…take a seat over there, next to Mr. Petrakis."

With a huff, Courtney stomps her blocky heels all the way over to the chair beside Tyler. There is no one else in the room, but she takes the chair beside his.

Her arms cross tightly, squeezing her prominent bosom. She spends a moment silent, in a pout, before finally deciding to cool down and engage her waiting room peer.

"Let me guess, you were sent to the office for another disruptive stationary fight?"

Tyler snaps into reality, coming to his own defence. "Come on! That was two years ago, let it go already! Besides, it was Duncan who started it."

"Of course it was Duncan who started it, it's _always _Duncan who starts things. In fact, that was the day where I first understood to what point Duncan 'starts things' and decided to at long last give up any hope of reconciliation with him!"

Tyler may not be the most perceptive person in school, but two things in her speech are immediately apparent: firstly, that reconciliation with Duncan is certainly a sore spot with her, and secondly, that she was making a bold-faced lie.

"More like you realized you were in love with him…or something."

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm not thirteen anymore. Lots of girls my age prefer 'bad boys'," she makes air quotes, "But I'm not a child. I know that bad boys are simply that, _bad_,"

And Tyler could tell she was making that up, too. She _loved _bad boys. As soon as someone did something naughty or forbidden, it can be assumed that Courtney would get a raging hard-on for them for the next couple of weeks. Whether it be Geoff's parties, Duncan's mowhawk, or even back in sixth grade when Bruce 'Lightning' Kareem got his diamond stud. Which was particularly messed up, since Lightning Kareem is like two grades behind them, and in grade six, that's tantamount to pedophilia. With any luck, Courtney never finds out that her established rival Noah Khosla smoked a blunt with Tyler and Geoff during the Summer, or else she might molest him or send him to gay camp or something. Goddamn it, Courtney.

"Whatever, Courtney." Tyler utters, reclining in his seat and splaying his legs even further.

"You still didn't tell me why you're here. Did you cut class? Did they take your cell phone away? Did get into an argument with a teacher?"

"No! It's not even your business, dude."

"Don't call me dude. People don't go to the office just to 'hang out'! Underage drinking, maybe? No, that wouldn't be a school issue."

"Why do you want me to look like a bad guy so badly?" Tyler says, jolting more erect.

"I _don't_. I was simply wondering how someone…" her eyes follow the line of his figure, "Upstanding like you could need to come down here. Have you been spending time with Duncan or something?"

"You need to lay off the Duncan stuff, you're like, obsessed with him."

"Am not! He's a bad egg! I can't believe I just called him a bad _egg, _but that's exactly what he is!" She whines.

"If she's so bad, why do you keep talking about him?"

She opens her mouth but doesn't speak. She faces forward and crosses her arms tightly again, squeezing her mass of her breasts against the edge of her dress top.

"I just came down to get the logins for my class." Tyler finally says. Courtney's expression warps slightly, a look of embarrassment laced with almost a kind of disappointment.

"But to be fair, I only wanted to run the errand so I could cut math. It blows, man."

Courtney turns to him, mouth parted. Her coffee-brown eyes, heavily skirted in mascara, gaze thoughtfully at his face. Tyler replies with tight lips and a shrug.

At that exact moment, Harry returns with the login list, and Tyler's task is nearly complete.

* * *

Tyler decided to take the long way around. The _long _long way around. After grabbing a cookie from the caf and strutting around the school for a good fifteen minutes, he realizes it's probably in his best interest to return to Mrs. Penney's room before someone calls a search party out on him. He runs up the stairs three at a time, remaining half of his cookie pinned in his mouth.

He reaches the top stair and shoves the last piece of the oatmeal confection in his mouth. As he chews, he hears the familiar clackity-clack of high heels.

The moment he swallows his oatmeal cookie, Courtney rounds the corner.

"What are _you _doing here?" She says with an accusatory tone. "Shouldn't you be back in class? It's already eleven-thirty."

"I felt like taking a walk." He says, passing her.

"Hold up." She says. He turns to her.

"Dude, you told me to get to class. Now you tell me to _not _go to class. What do you _want?_"

"You're impossible."

"I'm just minding my own beeswax, dude! Can't a guy munch on some cookies without getting hounded?" his hands flail in exasperation.

"You'll run out of absences before the first month is over!" she says in a squealing, airy, voice.

"Why do you even care?"

"You'll fail, and you're not lowlife like Duncan! You're not a bad boy!"

"I bet you wish I was!"

"I!" Her voice cracks and dissipates. She examines Tyler, wide eyed, bosom rising and falling with strong, silent heaves.

"Get back to class."

She clacks her heels against the ground double time, and hurries down the stairs.

* * *

Offering to run errands for Mr. Dentzel is an excellent way to escape the horrors of chemistry class, which Tyler, being in foundations math, probably shouldn't be taking at all. But the pH scale isn't really that hard, and the teacher said the quadratic formula will be written there for them when they need to solve problems with it.

When he runs errands, Tyler always finds a way to make the simplest excursion take the longest time possible. Under the guise of having a particularly arduous bowel movement, he can surely find the time to sneak a good ten minutes of handicapped bathroom stall make-out time with Courtney.

Of course, only if she has an off-period.

* * *

**This is the first thing I ever posted here that isn't 1st person and isn't Noah-centric! So it's really different using Tyler as my focus instead. He isn't as wordy or thoughtful so I couldn't be as flowery, but on the same note, he's a lot more innocent and fun than cynical Noah. Also I'm totally in love with him, he's like my favorite male character along with the Noco boys. He doesn't get enough love! So in this story, he will get love. Literally. And with everybody. Enjoy!**


	2. Tyler Watches Hockey

Nine fifty and the Hockey game is on. Tonight, it's the Montreal Canadiens versus the Detroit Redwings, and Tyler has always been a Canadians fan, even though he isn't sure why they spell 'Canadians' wrong on their shirts. Tyler is also pretty sure that 'Toronto Maple _Leafs_' is also some form of incorrect, but he can't put a finger on it. Because of this trend, Tyler is of the belief that every hockey team has a misspelled word somewhere in the name, at least all the Canadian ones, so that they can keep copyrights or something like that. Edmonton Oilers, Vancouver Canucks – what buffoons! It taught him a handy trick at remembering to spell certain words, even though his Canadian History teacher in grade ten never seemed to catch on to Tyler's definition of 'Oilure' and of 'Canuques'. He wasn't very good at French, so the 'que' thing put him through a loop sometimes, and so did silent letters, but that's another problem entirely.

The commercial ends and the game resumes, second period. Tyler cracks open another can of Alexander Keith's, and hands one to Zeke. Beer tastes kind of like stale bread, but they're teen boys watching sports with no parental supervision, so it's kind of a requirement.

Tyler stopped finding it kind of weird that he spends increasing amounts of time with Ezekiel Lukashenko, even though he isn't a normal person at all. They used to be tight in elementary, back when the small Ezekiel was the perfect size to intimidate on the b-ball court. Maybe it's just because Tyler's parents knew his parents, who tried to set their stumpy, awkward son on playdates with someone arguably more appealing and athletic. When puberty hit and everyone got taller, Ezekiel didn't grow quite as much, so for all intents and purposes, his status as the punching bag could have remained.

Except he got really messed up during his teen years. He started to smell funny – well, funnier than before. And he constantly ping-ponged between being hardline Christian and obnoxiously atheist, never failing to be dogmatic regardless of his current position. So it was no wonder that nobody wanted to hang out with him, ever.

Then in grade eleven he shaved his head bald. Like _really _bald. Like face-razor-to-the-scalp bald, and nobody knew why. Any chance Zeke had at not being a total zero was swept away like his scraps of oily, brown hair on the tile floor.

But that was then, and this was now, and Tyler decided to suck up his pride and hang out with Ezekiel again, because there truly was a time, many years ago, that he truly considered that awkward Canadian stereotype a real friend, and given the opportunity to rekindle that, it's better to do it than _not _to.

So this is where they find themselves, in front of the TV, drinking beer, enforcing Zeke's status as a stereotypical Canadian in broad strokes. Perhaps they should have taken a case of Molson's Canadian instead of Alexander Keith's, as it contains the very word 'Canadian'. However, when sufficiently cold, the variety between the light, yeasty tastes of beer is minimal, and being only eighteen, Tyler has to make due with whatever Zeke gets. And there's no doubt, based on his physical appearance and general attitude, that Ezekiel is not exactly a man of cultured tastes.

"D'you ever see that show 'House'?" Zeke says, out of the blue.

"Yeah, sometimes. It's like, that doctor who's a dick, right?" Tyler says, taking another frothy sip from his can.

"I kinda like it. All that doctor mumbo-jumbo. It would be cool to be a doctor."

"Zeke, b'y. You're never gonna be a doctor. You're nineteen years old and aren't in college yet." Tyler sets his drink down on the side table. "You were, like, super smart in junior high. You should get your shit together."

"Eh, I could still do it." He rubs the sleeve of his shirt against his nose. "Anyway, yeah, House. It's a good show. They have Olivia Wilde being a lesbian, making out with chicks and everything."

"No way, dude. I've seen house, Olivia Wilde dates the black guy."

"But she made out with girls. She's a lesbian."

"You're not a lesbian if you make out with boys too, dumbshit. She's bisexual." Tyler grunts, pointing a finger at Ezekiel's empty skull for emphasis.

"Whatever, b'y. She kisses girls, it's pretty hot."

"No, dude, that's not even the gayest thing on House. House is super gay with his little buddy who wears a tie all the time. They live together or something. I saw that episode where they went to a funeral. Super gay." Tyler leans back into the leather padding of the sofa, clicking the remote's volume button a few times to better hear Don Cherry and the boys.

"That's gross. I don't wanna see two old-ass men getting freaky."

"Ew, dude. They don't even get freaky. They don't even."

"I wouldn't wanna see it, if they did." Ezekiel cracks open a second beer, launching his empty can behind him and missing the loose pile of recyclables by like a kilometre.

"Don't you ever think," Tyler begins, squirming a bit, "that it's a bit, um. What do you call it? Hippo…"

"Hippopotamus?"

"No, numbnuts, why would you even think that? It's when you believe two things that don't match." Tyler twitches his fingers pensively. "Hypocrite. Don't you feel like a hypocrite for saying that it's hot when girls make out with each other but it's not okay for two dudes to go at it?"

"It's not even the same thing." Ezekiel replies, sliding even further back in his seat. "It's not even."

"Yeah, it totally is." Tyler shoots up straighter, contrasting Ezekiel's slack posture. "It's, like, same-sex couples. It's not like they make girl on girl marriage legal and not for guys or some shit. You can't have one without the other. Equality. Or some shit."

"Well I like girls and when girls kiss girls then it's twice the girls. Do you like making out with girls?"

"S'pose so, man." Tyler raises his eyebrows, he can't argue with that logic, even if it _is _Zeke logic.

"Well do you like making out with guys?"

The question Ezekiel poses sends a tiny jolt of nausea through Tyler, a visceral repulsion. "Ew. I dunno. I never thought about it much."

"Well then, there you go." Ezekiel tips the can towards his lips again, guzzling several millilitres of alcohol.

"How do you do that without gagging?"

The game is nearing the end. Well, kind of. When the clock says 14 minutes, it really means 14 minutes plus about twenty thousand minutes of stop-clock and maybe Don Cherry will come back to pound his fingers into the table for a few more minutes on top of that, explaining how he feels about young guys beating each other up on the ice.

Predictably, most of the people on the Canadiens have these French-ass names like 'David Dechamais'. Tyler remembers a few years back when there were more people with these weird Lion King-type names like Saku Koivu, although apparently he's like from Finland, where there are no lions.

"You really think you can't have one without the other, eh?" Ezekiel suddenly says, pulling himself into an erect position. "You like lesbians, you like the gays too?"

"Yeah, they should be allowed to do whatever gay-ass stuff they want. I mean, you don't need to _like _it, but you gotta tolerate it, cause they're gonna keep being that way no matter what ya think. Besides, I have at least, like, one gay friend."

"Eh." Ezekiel begins to tap on the top of his beer can rhythmically as Tyler's eyes stay glued to the screen. A fight breaks out, gloves fly off, a guy's probably gonna lose a tooth. There are some girls, mostly Canadian or maybe a few Finns, who like hockey players, but it's probably not for their looks. Next to none of them still have the nose shape they were born with.

The tapping on the can becomes more frantically paced, and seems a little nearer, too. Tyler feels the felt of Zeke's hoodie run against his arm as the melody is tapped out on the beer's top. He peels his eyes away from the TV screen long enough to utter: "Dude, what are you…"

A brief stalling, then Tyler is met with Ezekiel's stubbly lips pressing into his mouth. He stifles a grunt and pulls away quickly.

"Dude. What?" Tyler shrieks, smearing his wrist against his lips.

"I dunno, b'y. You got me thinkin' about stuff." He rotates the green can between his hands. "Maybe if girls can kiss girls, then guys should kiss guys. Equality, or some shit."

"I didn't mean _you _with _me!_"

"Well, what did you think about it?"

Tyler wants to get upset with him, but after a brief moment of pondering, he comes to a realization. "I dunno, man. It was over too fast for me to really pay attention."

The pair stares at each other with an inexplicable combination of curiosity and disgust, mouths parted and noses crinkled up.

But they wind up kissing again, despite Tyler's mind telling him it's absolutely a bad idea. This time, they let it linger for at least a moment, even though the kiss is still timid and unsure. Ezekiel's mouth tastes like old, yeasty beer, and his lips have the texture of beat-up rawhide. By the end of the kiss, Tyler isn't any more sure of anything than he was before.

Okay, he was sure of one thing, and that was that the kiss was downright unpleasant. But on the other hand, he couldn't be a hundred percent certain the unpleasantness came from kissing a boy, or if it came from kissing _Zeke. _If Zeke were a girl, he probably still wouldn't have enjoyed that.

Because it's Zeke, the same Zeke who shaved his head bald and can't decide if God is real or not. The same Zeke who never learned to avoid picking at scabs in the middle of class.

Ezekiel shifts uncomfortably on the lumpy leather sofa. "Dude, what just happened?"

"They just scored."

"You're right."


	3. Chapter 3

The residence handbook specifically forbids these kids of formally organized party in residence, but it seems anyone with any authority just turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the repeated whispers of the word 'toga' that echoed the hallways all week.

With Halloween retreating behind them and exam period looming in the future, the residents of Wawanakwa house, discretely but undoubtedly lead by Geoff, ordered a clandestine operation to profit from the last weekend before extended quiet hours the best way possible: with more drinking.

Except this time, the drinking would be done while – wait for it – wearing _sheets._

Tyler is never one to turn down a night of enthusiastic college boozing, nor does he fear being partially unclothed. However, he does find himself bemoaning one thing: his bed sheets are a sort of flaxen yellow. He recognizes that a toga party is not the pinnacle of historical accuracy, but he also recognizes his own Greek heritage, that heritage to which he owes his sharp nose, dark eyes, and wonderfully lean, athletic body that before-Christ pederasts would certainly enjoy. That same Greek heritage that should possibly make him the expert on Greek stuff, even though the only Greek things he really knows about are feta cheese, olive oil, and the frat he's trying to join.

And he's also pretty sure all the Greeks in books and movies wore white. But he also heard that a lot of statues and things have been bleached away by the wear of time, and in fact, not everything prior to the middle-ages was in shades of grey. Screw it, he decides – the Greeks didn't even wear bed-sheets to begin with.

After attempting to tie the corner of his sheet around a shoulder, Tyler takes his second shot, and probably his last before leaving the security of his room. He feels the tiniest flush rise to his cheeks from the burning liquid, but is nowhere near inebriated enough to develop unsteady hands. Sucking in his stomach to tighten the sheet wrapping, he ties a final bow around his waist, and heads into the hallway.

The boys never said where to meet, but the commotion emanating from the open door of DJ's room gives him a couple hints as to where to start.

He wriggles in the door, relieved to see that he's not the only one in off-white: Duncan's got stripes, Geoff's got polka-dots, and Lindsay, notably, has a boldly retro floral print. Everyone has their fabric draped and tied in their own uniquely sloppy way.

No delay before he's downing shots. He used to drink beer, and he still likes it a bit, but Bridgette told him that the calories in beer are a big contributor to the freshman fifteen, and the last thing Tyler needs is a thick layer of sub-cute-botanical fat making him laggy on the field, on the ice, and in the gym. So now it's straight vodka, and though it feels like taking a blow torch to his adam's apple, it also brings all 170 pounds of him from sober to buzzed in no time flat.

A blur in his vision and a cramped, gelatinous feeling in his legs tells him that he's locked and loaded. Drunk enough to feel like a beast, sober enough to not fuck up his life. The perfect place to be. He manoeuvers away from DJ's desk and scopes the other corner of the room to find someone to chat with.

"Yo so I had like black rum for the first time tonight. Crazy."

Cody Anderson's voice sounds somewhere between caffeinated and drunk, and Tyler figures at first that he's only hearing a clipped piece of someone else's discussion.

"How's it going for you?"

Tyler turns, perplexed, in Cody's general direction. His eyes, though liquid with intoxication, still have enough alertness to show that they're focused on Tyler.

"Oh, Cody. How's she going?"

"Drunk." He says, grinning a gap-toothed smile. His toga is white – he must have borrowed someone's sheets, because his Spongebob bed sheets are borderline infamous around the rez, owing to the snarky gossip of his roommate.

"That's great." Tyler replies, unsure of what the proper response to a one-word comment is.

"So me and Noah were taking shots every time someone died, and he was so good that I had to take like, _fourteen _shots of black rum. I'm thoroughly thrashed."

"Died?" Tyler asks, catching sight of Noah rolling his eyes in the periphery of his vision. Cody's told this story already about six times tonight, and every time, the ultimate number of shots taken increases.

"We were playing a video game, I mean, yeah and if someone. Uh. We made it into a drinking game! Fuck, I love having a roommate."

"I don't have one, myself. Sounds like fun though."

"Yeah we're like, two peas in a pod!" Cody says, chuckling sloppily at his own comment. "I want to sit down."

Baffled, but thoroughly entertained by the slender boy's antics, Tyler decides to take a seat beside him on the bed.

"Man, being drunk is fun. Why didn't I do this earlier? I wasted so much of high school. I'm amazing. It's all amazing."

Tyler felt like asking if Cody was a hundred percent sure he didn't snort a line or two of coke before coming to the toga party, because despite the slurring, his speech was too energetic for a drunk guy.

"Only problem is, I want to bang, like, everyone now. Is that normal? You've been drunk a bunch of times! Is that normal?" His widened eyes twitch slightly, and he added, "Not that I've never been drunk before but like, yeah."

"Yeah, I guess dude. You feel brave or some shit. Like everyone else is feeling just as brave, so you tend to do some wacky shit. The sex itself is shitty though, especially if you're nauseated or something. This is a weird thing to talk about."

"I don't talk to you enough, you're a riot." Cody giggles, alcoholic fumes wafting from his throat.

"Thanks, b'y." says Tyler, though didn't know what was so funny. "So what, are you trying to get with someone?" Tyler was well aware on Cody's crush on Gwen, which had not let up for even an instant since the start of frosh week. He was also aware that Gwen's disdain for the eager geek only increased along with her blood alcohol level.

"Nah, dude, you know, like you said, when you get drunk enough you'd bang anyone. It wouldn't be, like, _special._ She'd probably forget half of it and regret the rest, and I'd probably blow it big time. I don't wanna do that. If I get with Gwen, I want it to be sober. I want it to be like, romantic. Real. Oh shit." He says, eyes glazing a little. He must be imagining the horrific results of previous drunken Gwen flirting. Tyler hadn't been privy to the details, but it _allegedly _lasted about three seconds because a wave of nausea sent Cody out of the room. That nausea was likely a gift from Zeus, or Aphrodite, or someone, because there's no doubt it cut short what was destined to be an ultimate embarrassment fest.

"I'd like to, like, hug somebody though, I have great friends. Toga parties are great. I wish I had a slice of pizza. With mushrooms. And someone to like, kiss pizza kisses. Oh, that sounded gross."

"Aw, Cody, you sweet little gremlin, good to see you're here!" Bridgette's voice is heard, as serene as ever, and her erect posture shows she knows her own limits. Her toga is better-draped than anybody's, and with a seashell necklace and faux leather waist-belt, she actually plays the part of greek goddess well. She chuckles. "I'll give you a freebie."

She leans over, blue fruity drink in hand, and gives Cody a chaste kiss on the cheek. He lights up. "Thank you!" he squeaks.

"And you too, Tyler!" She barely grazes his skin with her lips, but the gesture was one of friendly affection rather than an invitation to anything more, so it's appreciated nonetheless.

"That was awesome!" Cody says, turning to Tyler.

Tyler chuckles, "Dude, you're acting like she just blew you or something."

The darkness at the corners of Tyler's field of vision begins to engulf more of his view as the last of the ethanol metabolizes in his guts. He absently stares at Cody's face with its ever-droopier eyes as he rides the mental elevator to the next level of intoxication. His tunnel-vision reverie is broken off when Cody speaks.

"Would you kiss me, right now?"

As before, Tyler feels like maybe he was just hearing clipped fragments of someone else's conversation. The comment sounded like it was somewhere between a statement and a question. A demand with a question mark. Tyler's spelling may not be all it's cracked up to be, but he has his punctuation down pat, and that vocal question mark throws him through a loop.

"Huh" he utters, guttural and wordless. They're sitting close and Cody's entire face looks like it's been splattered with a theatrical level of rouge.

"Would you kiss me." Simply stated, like a request to pass the sweet potatoes. What could be the harm? Just one could be interesting. Tyler'll chalk it up to drunkenness. That's what he did the day after he fucked up Trent's Roomba, and that's what he'll do tomorrow. So he smooshes his lips into Cody's, expecting it will just be a lip version of what happened with Bridgette.

Tyler had never been so wrong about anything since the devastation that was his Geography midterm last month.

Cody tries his best to force his unruly tongue between Tyler's closed lips, and Tyler pulls away in revolt.

"Okay." Tyler says, perhaps as a vague response to Cody's earlier demand-slash-question.

"Dude, that wasn't a good one. Can we try it again?" Tyler should definitely say no.

The second time doesn't go better than the first, and Cody's words are verbatim the same again, complete with the punctual 'dude', as if using the affectionate 'dude' nickname would somehow make this man-makeout a little more heterosexual.

"I shouldn't, really," Tyler says, "Like, there's someone else I should be smoochin'."

"She's not gonna care, you're not even Facebook offish yet, I'm a dude, we're drunk, dude." Cody replies, eyes slits, laughter slipping through his clenched, gapped teeth.

A third time, and that's all, Tyler promises. Then he'll walk away before he embarrasses himself even more.

But his embarrassment is far more discrete than expected – amidst the rush of King's cup and bad tunes, and the crunch of thirteen kids in a single dorm, only one pair of eyes watches the mortifying debacle.

* * *

Tyler has to head to the can. Vodka doesn't have the sheer volume of beer, but it still has that funny effect of ravaging your bladder. He stands in front of the toilet, holding back a sigh of relief as he noisily spills into the toilet. Blackness still dotting the edges of his vision; he needs to keep a hand against the back wall of the stall to keep himself from stumbling straight into the toilet.

He swings open the door and washes his hands. While scrubbing, he studies himself in the mirror and slowly processes his latest drunk fuckup. Numerous thoughts flash through his mind – the idea of kissing a dude, the idea of kissing while sitting on the innocent DJ's bed, the idea of kissing the infamous Cody 'White Girl Wasted' Anderson, and a side dish of remembering that last unprecedented kiss in the hallway, where Cody's toga started to fall away from his narrow waist and Tyler allowed his hands to linger at his stomach for a little too long after helping him tie it back up. As much as Tyler hates to admit it, that last kiss - the one to actually last more than twenty painful seconds – was a bit too close to pleasurable.

A person can get to a certain point of drunkenness where anything that happens with your eyes shut just disappears. For that reason, he's more aware of the _idea _that it happened, than aware of event's details. Hot lips, uncoordinated motion, a little bit of slimy, rum and cola flavoured spit come to mind. And after that, only the darkness of closed eyes, and a vague feeling of 'Oh, this is a bad plan.'

A lot of thoughts slosh through his inebriated mind like the liquid had sloshed in his overfilled bladder, but from his lips escaped only one sound:

"Oh no…."

He held the 'o' sound like a growling note in ambient death metal, as it rattled in the back of his throat. That's it, he fucked 'er up. This is worse than breaking Trent's Roomba, and everyone's going to remember.

He exits the washroom, and is met with the disgruntled yet slightly bemused face of Noah.

"I got Cody to go to bed," he says, with a knowing lilt to his voice. "I was headed to take a smoke. Wanna come?"

"Nawh b'y, I don't smoke." Tyler replies, stroking back his hair. Noah's eyebrows straighten out, and his mouth forms a tight line. "Oh. _Oh."_

"Go grab your coat on the way out, we'll probably take a walk. If Cody dies of alcohol poisoning in my room, I'd like at least another half hour of joy before facing that nonsense."

* * *

"Having Cody as a roommate is honestly a fucking headache every single day of my life." Noah says, cautiously sprinkling a little of the good stuff into a paper, resting on his poli sci notebook.

"Really? I thought you guys were," Tyler searches his head for the exact words Cody used, "Two peas in a pod?"

"Well maybe, except he's a pea on meth. Like, honestly, I love him, he's a good friend, but he's just not that mature. He doesn't know how to control himself."

"I heard he's got a six hundred dollar fine from that time he needed an ambulance called or something." Tyler says, cold air nipping his drunkenness away into a state of tipsy awareness.

Noah laughs an exaggerated, snarky laugh – an emphasis on the H sound in each 'Ha' "Yeah, who do you think is the one that had to spend an hour trying to wake him, several minutes waiting for the ambulance, several more minutes talking to RAs, and also had to stay up the entire night waiting for him to get back? Goddamnit, man, he puked in my recycling bin. I actually intended to separate those recyclables correctly. But if it wasn't for the puke, he'd have gone to the drunk tank instead of the hospital and that would probably be worse. Light please?"

Tyler jolts slightly, and presses the button on his phone to re-illuminate the light that timed out, shining it on Noah's work area.

"Anyway," Noah says, rolling the paper into a cylinder. "This is more or less me paying you off, a sort of, 'sorry my roommate tried to get into your pants.'"

"Nah, dude, he was keeping 'er above the belt. He's a bad kisser though."

"Tyler, he said, and I quote: 'I'll give you the best oral sex in your life.'"

"Aw, shit, you heard that?" Tyler replies, a bit of a discomfort forming at the base of his esophagus as he remembers the strange 'dude' whimpers that were intended to win him over, but only confused him.

"Yeah. In the two and a half months that Cody's been my roommate, I've developed a bit of a Cody sense, to detect when he's going to ruin someone's day, so I was basically monitoring his behavior the whole evening."

"I really don't think his oral sex would have been that great."

Noah laughs, a genuine laugh this time. As hearty of a laugh that his nasal voice can support. "Absolutely not. He was so drunk that he couldn't find the straw on his water cup. I don't think he could find a dick any easier."

"Lindsay's gonna be mad."

"Relax, dude, she doesn't have the capacity to be mad – " Noah begins, stopping himself slightly short of offending Tyler with comments on his almost-girlfriend's lack of brainpower. "I mean, drunk, gay, mistakes aren't the end of the world. I don't think she even saw. She was too busy taking selfies with Leshawna. To be honest, no one really cared that much. It will look worse on him than on you."

"Drunk, gay, mistakes, eh." Tyler repeats, shifting his feet together. "That whole thing was weird. What about Gwen though?"

He wanted to add, 'And what about me', but he figured he could mull over his sexual entanglement once he was good and stoned, and probably comfortably file it away in his mind with the Roomba incident within a few days.

Noah shrugs his shoulders. "Cody strikes my finely-tuned, and by finely tuned, I mean Windows 2000 era, gay-dar as someone who has a positive feedback loop via alcohol and sexuality. As in, he gets progressively less straight as he gets progressively more drunk." Noah says, as he slips his lighter out of his pocket and hands it to Tyler.

Tyler raises the joint to his mouth and lights, uttering simply: "Jesus Christ."

"I mean I've given him the spiel about eighty times on how not to behave like a complete lush at parties, but clearly, he's never taken this to heart. Poor kid." He holds out a hand to grab the crumpled paper tube before the fire dies. "He never got drunk much in high school, and by that, I mean he did like one time. And he likes to exaggerate. Anyway, so he's blowing up into the _classic _frenzied freshman."

"I'm glad I live in a single."  
"Well, someone has to take care of him, and since I've got a lot of siblings, I guess I've grown used to dealing with atrocious amounts of bullshit." Noah says, taking a deep, smoky breath.

"I gotta give you mad props for that. You're a good roommate."

"Speaking of being a good roommate, I don't wanna go back to my room 'til I'm ready to sleep, because Cody's probably out like a light and he's gotta sleep it off."

"You can come to my room, we can watch some random shit on Youtube." Tyler says, absently, adding: "But like, if you ask to kiss me, I'm just gonna say no."

"Pfft, just 'cause I like dicks doesn't mean I like yours." Noah remarks.

"Ouch."

"With all due respect." Noah sucks the last from the roach, and stuffs it in the grass out of sight. The two take the long way around back to the residence, letting the air wipe away the scent.

"Yo, dude, you know what I just realized?" Tyler says, tingles beginning to flutter down his vertebra.

"What."

He gestures to the building, few lights still on.

"It's only, like, 11:09 PM and everyone's in bed."

"Ha."


End file.
